After living in east Ipswich for many years, we moved to Chattisham in October 2015. With a population under 500, the village is tiny but is yoked to its immediate and bigger neighbour: Hintlesham. The 'big' village straddles the main road from Ipswich to Hadleigh, has a school, a pub and a garage - although not much else. There is no shop, for example. What the two villages do have, which is entirely absent from the housing estate where we used to live, is a sense of community. We had met more local people by the end of our first couple of weeks here than we did in 9 years in the previous house. And those numbers increased exponentially when I caved in to the idea of getting a dog. Many local people would struggle to tell you our names - but they know Gus.

One thing that Hintlesham and Chattisham have is an abundance of clubs, activities and committees. There are two annual flower shows, Chattisham open gardens every 2 years, a bowls club, a culture club, a walking group, a church funds group and a small group of people who put on community events at least once a month as well as a terrific fry up on a Sunday morning every so often, and more. In amongst all this are two committees: the Parish Council and the Community Council. Aha … two councils.

One of the stalls at the Hintlesham and Chattisham Fun Day, September 2017

The Parish Council is a traditional group that takes care of official business, planning application reviews and the like. The Community Council is a different beast although there is a significant overlap in membership. The primary responsibility of the Community Council is to run the various facilities that exist in the two villages, principally the large sports field in Hintlesham and the Hintlesham and Chattisham Community Hall. That's where most of the events take place and that needs active, energetic management. It was this committee that wanted a new Web site.

The Parish Council already had its own Web site but, to cut a long story short, it was agreed that the Community Council would be better served by its own, separate site. So I volunteered to set one up.

The Hintlesham and Chattisham Community Council Web site is now up and running, with a strong focus on events in the village. It's also the place to see when the hall is available and through which to make a booking. For techies, it's a simple Word Press site with a bunch of plug-ins to handle the event management system, booking form and image galleries.

I hope it acts as a source of information about the hall and its events, and helps in the overall aim of maintaining the active, vibrant community in Hintlesham and Chattisham, of which we are so pleased to be a part.